Chapter 682 - 144: Contact Again

Zhang Deming swept his gaze over the area and quickly noticed something was wrong. Plenty of people were dead, but he couldn’t find a single person who was completely unharmed—not even someone with minor injuries. All he saw were the critically wounded, clinging to life, and the dead.

This discovery gave Zhang Deming pause. He had been about to enter and quickly inspect the airship, but now he hesitated.

He sensed a faint fluctuation of Spiritual Power. He turned his head to look. Although he didn’t detect any signs of a fight, he was certain the disturbance had come from ahead and to his right.

Zhang Deming rose into the air, floating to the ship’s bow that was tilted toward the sky, and peered down at the other side of the hull.

He had landed on the deck, which was the topside of the tilted vessel. But now, when he saw its underside, he was taken aback.

’I take it back. That thought about it being flyable with a few repairs? Forget it. This ship was an absolute wreck, completely beyond saving!’

A giant, fist-shaped crater had been punched into the underside of the hull, seemingly by some enormous creature.

The entire underside of the hull had been nearly punched through, exposing the ship’s internal structures and a chaotic mess of wiring that spat out a shower of sparks.

Beyond the crater, a section of the forest had been flattened, creating a huge, tunnel-like path, as if something had plowed its way through the trees and slid off into the distance.

The trees along the way had been snapped and flattened, forming a long trail that stretched into the distance. The faint disturbance he’d sensed earlier had come from that very direction.

Zhang Deming took in the scene and was about to fly off toward the flattened forest, but his eyes, gleaming with Spiritual Light, suddenly stopped. His peripheral vision had caught a glimpse of something. He shifted his gaze back to the gaping hole in the hull.

Sparks flew from all over the massive hole in the ship’s underside. As Zhang Deming inspected it carefully, his gaze settled on one of the cabins within.

With a slight spread of his wings, he gently floated down and into a structure inside. It looked like an elevator—or, to be more precise, it looked exactly like an escape pod from a sci-fi movie.

Inside the small elevator-like shaft was an escape pod. The pod itself was severely deformed, and a considerable amount of blood had seeped out from within.

Zhang Deming gave a slight wave of his hand. Emerald-green vines sprouted from the ground around him. Swaying like arms, the vines pried open the mangled pod.

Inside was a crew member. Although Zhang Deming’s Perception identified him as a mere mortal, his uniform suggested he held a high-ranking position on the airship, perhaps a first mate or something similar.

Only the man’s head and limbs were still intact. His torso had been crushed by the impact, flattened into a pulpy mess.

As the pod was opened, the pungent stench of blood washed over Zhang Deming. That, combined with the corpse’s twisted expression and eyes wide with defiance, would have been enough to startle anyone.

But after half a month of disaster relief work, Zhang Deming was quite accustomed to such scenes. Now, faced with this sight, he merely furrowed his brow.

Ignoring the corpse, he directed the vines to search a corner of the escape pod, where they retrieved a box that had been wedged inside.

It was the size of a briefcase and remarkably intact, without a single scratch on it. This formed a stark contrast with the mangled pod surrounding it.

What’s more, Zhang Deming couldn’t see through the box. His Reconnaissance Spiritual Eye, already at the Tier Three Mastery Level, couldn’t penetrate an object that didn’t even have an Array protecting it.

’That alone was enough to prove the box was valuable. Heck, the materials it was made from had to be worth a fortune.’

The vines wrapped around the box and brought it before Zhang Deming. He looked it over for a moment, then paused.

’A fingerprint lock?’

Looking at the scanner on the box, a thought flashed through Zhang Deming’s mind. He glanced back at the unlucky soul in the escape pod. A vine slithered over and coiled around the corpse’s right hand.

The tip of the emerald vine split into fine threads, which burrowed into the exposed nerves at the severed end of the arm.

The vine quickly swelled as the threaded tendrils rapidly extended. In the blink of an eye, the vine had fused perfectly with the severed arm, making it look as though an arm had grown from the vine’s tip.

Zhang Deming watched as the hand’s fingers twitched. They were a little stiff, but he had no problem controlling them.

Zhang Deming manipulated the severed arm, extending its thumb and pressing it onto the box’s fingerprint scanner. The scanner flashed, and a tiny needle shot out from its center, piercing the thumb.

’A blood-binding ritual... hmm... or a DNA verification function?’

As he felt the needle pierce the flesh, Zhang Deming’s Spiritual Power fluctuated. The vines turned blood-red as they absorbed some of the pooled blood and plasma, channeling it through their network to the needle in the thumb.

Once the needle had drawn blood, it retracted. Zhang Deming manipulated the severed hand, pulling it back.

"BEEP! Fingerprint verification successful!"

"BEEP! DNA verification successful!"

"CLICK..."

Following the faint mechanical chimes, a latch clicked open, and the briefcase popped open a crack.

As the crack opened, a wave of pure Spiritual Power washed over him. It was so incredibly dense and pure that Zhang Deming nearly experienced something akin to oxygen intoxication.

Zhang Deming froze for a second. A gleam of delight flashed in his eyes as he eagerly opened the briefcase.